Is there actually any evidence that caffeine is bad for kids? From the article, it looks like the impetus for this change is concern from teachers, not from scientific research regarding the impact of high doses of caffeine on children under 16.
- The drinks have an addictive property due to caffeine and many of these drinks are full of sugar causing the consumer to continuously consume sugar. Nobody should be consuming added sugar especially not kids who's brains are still developing. They do not need insulin resistance yet another fun topic.
- The excessive B vitamins in the drinks are the cheap low quality inactive forms and worse there are only a couple different vitamins. This is a fun rabbit hole to research. Adding even one inactive B vitamin in large quantities can shut down the conversion of all inactive B vitamins in the liver and in some cases the kidneys and can lead to a B vitamin deficiency, somewhat ironically.
B vitamins are required for energy production. Shutting down the conversion process can lead to people feeling tired and weak, thinking they need more energy drinks... This is a vicious cycle that can only be remedied by a healthy diet, exercise and sleep. Excessive energy drink consumption can interrupt or lower the quality of sleep. A lack of good sleep interrupts the healing process which every person requires or they start taking age related damage earlier and faster leading to more diseases and vulnerabilities.
This rabbit hole goes many layers deeper and would require writing a book and this is even before talking about how this exacerbates all the effects of drugs that doctors have shamefully prescribed to kids and adults.
You are quite welcome. I hope this gets some people curious enough to research.
Even if they were the active form there are typically only two or three of them. A healthy diet is the optimal method to get all the B vitamins or at least the 13 critical B vitamins but if ones lifestyle is preventing this one can get them from a B-50 complex. A healthy diet should be preferred when possible.
B1 - Thiamin [Inactive] vs Thiamine Diphosphate [Active]. B2 - Flavin Mononucleotide (FMN) vs Flavin Adenine Dinucleotide (FAD). B12 - Cyanocobalamine vs Methylcobalamin.
Interesting. So the idea is that an excess of (say) FMN would block conversion to FAD?
> Cyanocobalamin is also the most common form of vitamin B12 found in supplements. It is named because it contains a cyanide molecule. The amount of cyanide found in cyanocobalamin supplements tends to be small, but the body still has to do extra “work” to remove and eliminate the cyanide molecule. If your liver is already overworked, this added step can make activating this nutrient more challenging.
I'm sceptical that the extra 'work' here to convert CNCbl to MeCbl is significantly taxing for the liver. B12 is needed in very small amounts ("the upper limit of absorption per single oral dose is about 1.5 μg" - wikipedia).
More on this: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5312744/
> Numerous studies and reviews of B12 metabolism have shown that CNCbl, MeCbl, OHCbl, and AdCbl are reduced to the core cobalamin molecule inside the cytosol. It is important to note that the ligands specific to the ingested B12 form—methyl and adenosyl—are removed during that process and not used inside cells during the conversion of cobalamin to the 2 active forms of B12
Certainly that review suggests that taking one of the bioavailable forms (MeCbl, OHCbl, AdCbl) is _better_ than the usual CNCbl one, but I see no mention of CNCbl being more 'taxing' in some sense.
A Starbucks Frappuccino has 150 mg caffeine and 60 g sugar. Almost the same as a full can of Monster.
Actually no one should.
The risk associated with to much caffeine according to the same study is: Disturbed heart rhythm, high blood pressure, palpitations, shortness of breath, stomach ache, nausea, anxiety, nervousness, trouble sleeping, and in the worst case, cardiac arrest.
It's not that children can't safely drink an energy drink, it's just that some teenagers might down can after can and the "safe" amount of caffeine is less than 1L of energy drink per day (which already seems like a lot).
1) https://www.food.dtu.dk/-/media/institutter/foedevareinstitu...
It's complicated as there can be beneficial effects as well. The issue is likely with the dosage as typical tea drinking hasn't seemed to cause any issues and us brits have been drinking tea for a long time. I've heard anecdotes of extreme coffee drinking (multiple espressos over a short time) causing heart palpitations, but that's not common as excessive coffee tends to make people jittery (c.f. Futurama episode where Fry drinks 100 coffees).
Energy drinks have high levels of caffeine and high levels of sugar and tend to be chugged, so they're likely to excessive doses.
Found this review is likely relevant and in my view, the sleep disruption is a red flag for a healthy lifestyle: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7177467/
Sadly, there is often only enough money for caffeine or food: So you end up with children who are living off Sugar & Caffeine. They look as healthy as you'd expect.
This legislation is as much about preventing such scenarios as it is about the effects of the energy drinks themselves - (not that it'll work, but that's a another point entirely)
As for the tea/coffee points - I don't think any school allows access to a kettle - it is already a moot point.
Of course, it was almost certainly 99% the alcohol, and the rest 1% could be equally blamed on having a broken heart, or a hamburger, or candy as on the energy drinks.
(Or vodka/redbull, or vodka/Irn-Bru, or espresso martini ...)
Thanks to AI, it could be: https://g.co/gemini/share/3e1cb15c52aa
Not if you make it properly - correct water temperature of less than 100° (maybe as low as 70° for AeroPress), freshly ground beans and beans roasted less than 4 weeks ago or so. Also, drip coffee machines are terrible as they over-extract the coffee in the middle and under-extract the coffee round the outside. And a good grinder is essential to avoid too much dust and boulders that lead to over/under extraction.
Though one should point out that energy drinks have silly amounts of sugar and more caffeine than a typical mug of tea does.
Is a compound known for its primary side effect, anxiety, bad for people at the most anxious time in their lives, children?
I guess some need things to be spelled out in full.
Why assume the future won’t be even more stressful for this latest generation of young people?